A cure for evil?

[..] Loughner is a loon. Bonkers. Nutso. Three fries short of a Happy Meal. The media have so ruled.

Which leaves me with just one question: What ever happened to evil?

Why have we rushed to the judgment of insanity? Legally, very few defendants are found guilty of insanity. [...]

We know that anybody who guns down innocent people or sticks dead bodies under his house or eats them has got to be crazy, for pity’s sake.

And we believe that because we do not want to believe, as our ancestors believed, in evil. Evil is even more frightening than madness. Madness can be treated. All we need is early intervention and clinics and more resources devoted to the problem.

We hope.

[...I]n our modern times, are we embarrassed by the term “evil”? To some, it seems too primitive or too religious or both.

And we would much rather believe that all sick people can be cured by medical intervention.

Because that is a lot less scary than believing that evil walks among us.

 ~"Is Jared Loughner Insane or Just Evil?" by Roger Simon